Stop worrying where you're going - move on.
If you can know where you're going, you've gone.
Just keep moving on.
I chose, and my world was shaken - so what?
The choice may have been mistaken; the choosing was not.
You have to move on.
Look at what you want,
not at where you are,
not at what you'll be.
Look at all the things you've done for me:
opened up my eyes, taught me how to see,
notice every tree,
understand the light,
concentrate on now.
I want to explore the light.
I want to find how to get through,
through to something new,
something of my own - move on.
Move on.
Stop worrying if your vision is new.
Let others make that decision - they usually do.
You keep moving on.
Look at what you've done, then at what you want,
not at where you are, what you'll be.
Look at all the things you've done for me.
Let me give to you something in return.
See what's in my eyes
and the color of my hair
and the way it catches light
and the care
and the feeling
and the life moving on.
We've always belonged together.
We will always belong together.
Just keep moving on.
Anything you do, let it come from you.
Then it will be new.
Give us more to see...
- Sunday in the Park with George, Stephen Sondheim
Sunday, May 18, 2014
Birthdays, Remembered
Today is my 33rd birthday. It's a quiet one, as they tend to be these days. Right now I'm alone at home, in bed, drinking coffee and listening to the birds and the traffic under my window. It's a good way to start a day. The sun is shining after a week of rain, which feels like a little gift as well.
Ten years ago today, I was in Europe with my friend Kelly. We woke up in Oslo, Norway, and took an all-day train ride to Bergen, on the opposite side of the country. The train was comfortable, with a dining car, hot coffee, alcohol, huge windows, seats at tables as if you were in a restaurant. That was my favorite part of European train travel - the tables. Every time I'm on a train the urge to write grows, so having space to spread out my books and notebooks was just delicious.
Oslo is at sea level, so this train took us up and up, overland and through the mountaintops. At one point it stopped, and we were able to get off and walk around. There was snow everywhere, in the middle of May. Kelly took a picture of me in jeans and a thin t-shirt, my hair in a ponytail, my sunglasses on, snow everywhere, my arms up in the international symbol of "what the fuck??" and a huge smile on my face.
Then we got back on, and started the trek down into the fjords. It's the steepest train ride in the world down into Flaam, with waterfalls gushing by, ice everywhere, dizzying drops and twists. And once you reach the bottom, you transfer from the train to a small boat, and travel through the waterways at the bottom of those endless fjords feeling like you're swallowed by a canyon, like you're a tiny insect, so small, so nothing, so insignificant inside all of that earth, the sky so far away.
In Bergen we explored the waterfront, figured out the bus system, headed to a hostel, and checked in. We were one of the only people there. We ordered a pizza for dinner - Norwegian pizza is interesting - and ate it in their common area in the quiet. The hostel was huge, sparse, with spotless warm wood and wide windows and white chairs. Around 11 o'clock we were exhausted, but the sun was still high in the sky so we went on a brief hike on the hillside in the backyard. There were wildflowers everywhere. The sun warmed the brightly colored houses, the bay, that cold North Sea, all whitecaps and blue water.
It was the start of six weeks of backpacking, the start of my adult life, the start of everything. It was physically challenging and emotionally overwhelming. I slept like the dead that night on a creaky metal bunk bed in a wide dorm room of other empty bunk beds, except for my tiny friend in the bed below me. Her birthday present to me was a CD, The Darkness, and we listened to it over and over again. We had everything ahead of us and, better than that, we knew it.
There are birthdays - most of them - of which I remember nothing. They pass through my mind in a blurry sameness, an air of general conviviality and celebration to them, but nothing momentous to mark them with. That's probably fine and normal. If we're lucky, we live for a long time. We collect many birthdays. But 23 was special. It's imprinted into my heart. It was my first breath of the cool air of post-school freedom. I wanted it to count, and it did.
23 was a long time ago now, though. And 43 is a long time away. Ten years can mean everything, can change the entire landscape of your being. Or they can change nothing. I guess that's all up to you. To everyone.
If I'm a lucky enough soul to live another ten years, the only thing I'm inclined to wish for is the ability to live them all the way through. To hold them close, to feel them fully, to not sleep through it. It's all so beautiful, so hard, so lovely. I don't want to let it pass me by.
Happy birthday to all the other spring babies. Make it count.
Ten years ago today, I was in Europe with my friend Kelly. We woke up in Oslo, Norway, and took an all-day train ride to Bergen, on the opposite side of the country. The train was comfortable, with a dining car, hot coffee, alcohol, huge windows, seats at tables as if you were in a restaurant. That was my favorite part of European train travel - the tables. Every time I'm on a train the urge to write grows, so having space to spread out my books and notebooks was just delicious.
Oslo is at sea level, so this train took us up and up, overland and through the mountaintops. At one point it stopped, and we were able to get off and walk around. There was snow everywhere, in the middle of May. Kelly took a picture of me in jeans and a thin t-shirt, my hair in a ponytail, my sunglasses on, snow everywhere, my arms up in the international symbol of "what the fuck??" and a huge smile on my face.
Then we got back on, and started the trek down into the fjords. It's the steepest train ride in the world down into Flaam, with waterfalls gushing by, ice everywhere, dizzying drops and twists. And once you reach the bottom, you transfer from the train to a small boat, and travel through the waterways at the bottom of those endless fjords feeling like you're swallowed by a canyon, like you're a tiny insect, so small, so nothing, so insignificant inside all of that earth, the sky so far away.
In Bergen we explored the waterfront, figured out the bus system, headed to a hostel, and checked in. We were one of the only people there. We ordered a pizza for dinner - Norwegian pizza is interesting - and ate it in their common area in the quiet. The hostel was huge, sparse, with spotless warm wood and wide windows and white chairs. Around 11 o'clock we were exhausted, but the sun was still high in the sky so we went on a brief hike on the hillside in the backyard. There were wildflowers everywhere. The sun warmed the brightly colored houses, the bay, that cold North Sea, all whitecaps and blue water.
It was the start of six weeks of backpacking, the start of my adult life, the start of everything. It was physically challenging and emotionally overwhelming. I slept like the dead that night on a creaky metal bunk bed in a wide dorm room of other empty bunk beds, except for my tiny friend in the bed below me. Her birthday present to me was a CD, The Darkness, and we listened to it over and over again. We had everything ahead of us and, better than that, we knew it.
There are birthdays - most of them - of which I remember nothing. They pass through my mind in a blurry sameness, an air of general conviviality and celebration to them, but nothing momentous to mark them with. That's probably fine and normal. If we're lucky, we live for a long time. We collect many birthdays. But 23 was special. It's imprinted into my heart. It was my first breath of the cool air of post-school freedom. I wanted it to count, and it did.
23 was a long time ago now, though. And 43 is a long time away. Ten years can mean everything, can change the entire landscape of your being. Or they can change nothing. I guess that's all up to you. To everyone.
If I'm a lucky enough soul to live another ten years, the only thing I'm inclined to wish for is the ability to live them all the way through. To hold them close, to feel them fully, to not sleep through it. It's all so beautiful, so hard, so lovely. I don't want to let it pass me by.
Happy birthday to all the other spring babies. Make it count.
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